Guam V. GUAM

There is a large land mass called GUAM, but it shouldn’t be confused with the island of Guam. GUAM is not Guam, that little 212 square mile Unincorporated Territory of the United States parked comfortably at 13.48 degrees North, 144.45 degrees East. The other GUAM is an alliance between Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova.

GUAM is ready for a name change, but not because it is aware of the other Guam. They simply want to be able to add new nation members without continually changing their name. From Moldova.org:

As the Moldovan authorities believe, the regional alliance of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova can be called Commonwealth for European Choice for Democracy and Economic Development. On May 22, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin introduced to GUAM member countries’ presidents Moldova’s proposal on changing the organization’s name, a REGNUM correspondent reports.

“I am sure, the new level, which our organization gets up to, claims for a more pragmatic and responsible attitude towards its name. In accordance with the draft charter, our organization is open for new candid and interested members, which means that the GUAM abbreviation is not appropriate by now,” Vladimir Voronin stressed. He noted that preserving the old name would put limits on external potential of the new subject of the international law, and in the name proposed by Moldova, “priorities are defined clearer, its openness and continuity of the consolidated policy are demonstrated in a more vivid way.”

Except now the acronym for “Commonwealth for European Choice for Democracy and Economic Development” will be CECDRC, which everyone will shorthand as CEDRIC. It would be catchy, sure. But if relevancy is what they want, how about “Commonwealth for European Democracy and Economic Development”, or CEDED? Certainly a proponent of democracy named Vlad must have some sense of the ironic.

[ More posts about | More blogs about political names ]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>